21 July

My Night Tonight. Imagining That I Am Light

by Jon Katz
Imagining That I Am Light
Imagining That I Am Light: My Friend Treasure and Fanny the donkeys

A friend messaged me – he does not use the phone any longer, we used to talk for hours – and he asked me I was watching the political conventions tonight, Donald Trump was speaking, it was, he said, “a very big deal.”

No, I said, I am not watching, I told him he would have to call me if he wanted to talk about my evening it was too big for a text message. Reluctantly, he did call me. I repeated that I am not watching the Republican Convention last night. I have been following some of it and trying to make sense out of all the rage and hurt and speculation, there was a frantic and furious quality to it that made me uncomfortable, and I couldn’t really find a reason to watch more of it.

To me, it is like watching a crash or accident, I remembered when the bear was hit by the truck and hobbled in great pain to our fence, my stomach sank and that’s what I feel when I pay too much attention to these people.

What are you doing?, he asked, he seemed disappointed in me, as if I was immature, or somehow irresponsible. It’s our duty to pay attention, he said.

I told him what I was doing instead, i said. And then, I thought I should share it with you. Of course I should. I think he was quite bored, I hope you are not.

First, I said, I was making dinner for Maria.

She is recovering from a flu or virus. I made her an ingenuous dinner, which she ate and liked, I think it revived her.  I made her a chicken sausage from Yushak’s grocery in Shushan, I also went to Salem to buy a chocolate chip croissant. I cooked the sausage on my new grill, my first ever, I went to the hardware store and bought a big fat propane tank, it ought to last a long time, said Bryan at the hardware store, “if you’re telling me the truth about how little you grill.” I did.

I’ve got the sausage cooking down. I turn on the gas lever, push the red button, wait for the flame to catch. I cook the sausage for eight minutes at medium high, close the cover, sit down and take in the dusk, then get up, turn it and cook it for another eight minutes. The corn is already boiling in the big pot. Summer is a wonderful time to eat well up here.

The sausage is well cooked, tasty and moist. I take the sausages off the grill and bring them into the kitchen, I feel like a very American man for once. Grilling makes me feel confident, as if I really belong, for once I am doing something all the other men do.

I put the croissant – fresh-baked-  on the plate.  This menu is not in any recipe book I know of. She said she couldn’t eat much, but she ate the sausage and croissant, an unorthodox mix, but it seemed to revive her, she is getting more animated by the minute, she is coming back from her haze.

Then I went outside with Fate and performed our beloved summer ritual together: we watered the gardens, which now encircle the farmhouse thanks to Maria. I am proud of my watering, our gardens are beautiful and thriving, thanks to Maria’s care and my diligent watering.

Fate usually sits by the pasture gate to stare at the sheep, and every few minutes comes over to me, sticks her head between my legs to see what I am doing. We talk and cuddle and then she goes back to the gate, or wanders around looking for something revolting to eat.

I truly believe this dog is monitoring the gardens with me.

Red is not interested in watering, by late evening he is tired from his work and holes up in my study, waiting for me to come in and write on my blog. I leave him in peace.

I love to see the water pool, then sink slowly into the ground, I love to check the color and sheen of the flowers and the strength of their stems. Our dahlia’s are popping up, there are fat figs on our fig bush, the Three Sisters Garden is roaring upwards. I fill the birdbath.

This takes me about a half an hour then I come back in the house and do the dishes. I check my e-mail and messages, I am neck-deep in book negotiations and proposal writing and the people I deal with in New York think you are dead if you don’t answer e-mail in seconds at any time night or day.

I know, I used to be one of them.

I turn off the outside faucet, I visit Chloe and the donkeys, brought them bits of corn cob from dinner (I had corn and sausage), stand with them for a while listen to their peaceful crunching.

I go inside, II take off my shoes, sit down and pick up a new expanded version of Robert Frank’s The Americans. He is my favorite photographer (along with George Forss). This new edition cost a lot, more than $50, it came this week, it weighs about 15 pounds.  New photos and new text for this classic.

Robert Frank is to me what the Gee’s Bend Quilters are to Maria, a continuing source of inspiration. He captured the pain, strength, beauty, conflict and work of America, I always melt when I think I’ve taken a Robert Frank photo. His photos are so real. Treasure (above) is a Robert Frank subject, worth her weight in gold.

Frank  gave up photography for film-making after the wildly successful “Americans,” but I love looking at his work, it gives me ideas and gets me excited. It makes me better.

My new friend Treasure Wilkinson (shown above with Fanny) seems to me to have stepped out of The Americans, I could photograph her all day. Her face is full of life and feeling.

Maria has gone to bed now, it is quiet downstairs and in my study, the sound only of Red sighting and my new Vornado fan humming. I finish up  the call from my friend, and I sense he was disappointed with my night, he thought it boring, he wanted to rail and wonder about Donald Trump and what is happening to our country.  I am not much into railing about political people. I never get the point of it, and it seems futile.  I rarely see anyone in America change their mind about anything.

All I can do is try to  be a good me.

Maria comes down from upstairs to tell me, sweet soul that she is, that she has read my new book proposal and loves it. That feels good to me. She is a big part of this new book.

I finish the evening with a quiet reading from the Kabbalah, and am, as often happens, uplifted. There is nothing about this version of a God that frightens or disturbs me. He is not angry, threatening or vengeful. He loves women, love, peace and the earth. He worries about the poor.

I was thinking this after reading.

Whatever is implanted firmly in my mind becomes the essential thing, this is why  I am not watching television tonight. If I think of a good thing or something I love or a small act of mercy or kindness, if I wish for my intension to be authentic, then I imagine that I am light.

All around me – in every corner and on every side – is light. Turn to my right, and there is shining light. to my left, a radiant light. Between them, and up above, the presence of light and color. All all of it a crown of light, a swirling circle of light – it is the crowning aspirations of thought, illumining the paths of the imagination, spreading the radiance of vision. This light is affirming, unfathomable, endless, without boundary.

It is my idea of holy, this light.

That is what I am watching and seeing tonight. I am at peace, and  hopeful. And also grateful.   I needed to write this evening down.

I will take my Robert Frank book upstairs and hug my wife, and open it in the middle of the night, when I wake up. Tomorrow morning, I will check in on the news when I wake up before dawn, or perhaps I will take a walk in the woods instead let it find me, it usually does. Things I really need to know always find me.

I think of it as a beautiful evening, full of love and light and meaning. I wish the same for you.

 

21 July

Touching Noses

by Jon Katz
Touching Noses
Touching Noses, Scott and Fate: An IR photo.

I went over to Pompanuck Farm for my weekly writing/Tai Chi barter lessons. We did neither, as often happens. Scott was exhausted from long days and nights working in his cafe. We talked and touched base with one another, made sure we were both okay.

We sat and talked by the pond at Pompanuck until I saw that Scott was just too exhausted to do more than that. I urged him to go take a nap before his next Tai Chi lesson. The truth is, I enjoy our time together as much or more than the lessons. This is how friendships are built. It is not always simple for men to build friendships, especially when both of them are so busy.

We have never given up on it.

Scott is still raising money for his gofundme project to raise money to buy the building his cafe is in. He has raised $60,000 so far, he is seeking another $15,000. I believe he will get there. The project is called “Saving Community,” and that is what it is about. All over America, people understand the importance of community, they are supporting this project. It means the world to us here.

Rural towns and cities have lost so much of their community to box stories, economists, corporate greed and government indifference. Scott and Lisa Carrino are righting to save ours.

Fate and Red came with me to Pompanuck. Red sat quietly near us. Fate explored every inch of the place, chasing a cat, eating compost, swimming in the pond pursuing fish, disappearing into the woods. She always came back, to touch noses. Fate shows her love by touching noses.

I happened to be holding my IR camera in my lap. She is as loving as she is energetic and curious. She growled and bark and stalked an object near the pond, it turned out to be a dark green plant.

21 July

Pasture Meditation

by Jon Katz
An Extra Spirit
An Extra Spirit

“You feel an extra spirit – arousing you, flowing over your entire body, bringing pleasure. It seems as if fine balsam oil has been poured over you from head to your feet – once, maybe more. You are overjoyed, in delight and trembling: the soul in delight, the body in trembling. Like a rider racing a horse: the rider is joyful and exuberant, while underneath, the horse quivers.”

The Kabbalah

More and more, I am seeing IR photography as a kind of spiritual meditation, at least for now. There is a hush about the photos, a calming, the spiritual pull of the unseen, a sense of seeing something beautiful that is there, but can not be seen by me.

21 July

Help For An Artist: A Camera For Christina Hansen

by Jon Katz
An Artist Is Born
Photo By Christina Hansen: New York Carriage Horse In The Shower

Christina Hansen is a 36-year-old carriage driver who works and lives in New York City. She moved there in 2012 from Philadelphia to help the embattled carriage trade fend off a massive and well-funded effort to ban their work and way of life, and, it seems, to seize their stables on the West Side of Manhattan for development.

Those of us who love her artistry are launching a campaign on this blog to  raise $3,000 for a full-frame camera for her, so that she might advance her very wonderful art. (People who wish can contribute by sending a donation or check in the name of Christina Hansen to my post office box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.)

Christina has been and is a fierce warrior for the carriage drivers and for working horses, her mission has been to educate people about their real needs and welfare. She has been savagely targeted at times by elements of the animal rights movement, who insist that work for working animals is a form of abuse and torture.

In the polarized and fragmented world of the carriage trade, Hansen was a clear, calm and consistent voice of reason, her words and photos helped people understand that the horses were healthy and content in their lives and work.

The carriage trade cause seemed hopeless  when the Democratic candidate for may mayor, Bill deBlasio, was given many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from several animal rights organization seeking to ban the horses.

Almost immediately after getting the money, the victorious deBlasio, who had never once mentioned the carriage horses in his long political career,  announced that banning the carriage trade was the number one priority of his new administration.

He would, he said, ban them from the city on the first day of his administration.

It didn’t happen. The horses are not going anywhere anytime soon.

The carriage trade fought back, with blogs, petitions, some bloggers, support from the public, from actor Liam Neeson, with strong support from their powerful Teamsters Union, a coalition of knowledgeable animal lovers from around the country, vets, behaviorists and  a spiritedband of writers, photographers, neighbors and videographers.

But Hansen, a 36-year-old lover of working horses, played a powerful and pivotal role in the defense of the horses.

She took over the role of spokesperson for the carriage trade and devoted herself to answering the often wildly inaccurate accusations of abuse and mistreatment leveled by the mayor and his animal rights supporters. She was available all day, every day, to answer the charges that whizzed daily around social media and the news media.

In the course of her work, something very powerful was unleashed in Christina. She started taking photos of the drivers and the stables and the horses with her Iphone5, putting them up on Instagram (where she has more than 1,000 photos) and on Facebook. The photos, like the one above, are remarkable.

They show the very human side of the drivers, the rich life of the stables, the fusion of Central Park with the beautiful horses, who have worked their since it’s creation.

The photos are beautiful, evocative and very revealing. With her remarkable eye, Hansen has taken us deeply in the world of the horses, and the carriage drivers, and of this iconic, fiercely individualist industry one of the oldest running businesses in the history of New Yorker.

Hansen was a fierce advocate for the carriage trade, and especially for the horses and the drivers. The people in the carriage trade have been viciously and relentlessly demonized by the mayor and the animal rights group. Christina Hansen’s photos have humanized them and helped given the lie to the idea that the horses do not belong in New York, and that the people who ride them are some greedy, inhuman and uncaring.

All of us who have explored this story know those libels to be false. We also see the artist in Christina Hansen emerging from this difficult conflict, her photos become more intuitive, reflective and powerful by the day. She has illuminated a precious way of life that is fragile to begin with, and somehow, and for no good reason, under siege.

I am drawn to this story because the fate of the carriage horses is the fate of many domesticated animals, most of whom – horses, elephants, ponies – are being relentlessly driven from our cities and communities by this bizarre idea that they don’t belong in human civilization. So Christina is fighting the fight we are all fighting or will be soon.

Beyond that, it is clear by now that Christina Hansen is a brilliant photographer, and she needs and deserves a camera that can take her and her photography to the next level.

She is hoping to purchase a Nikon D750 which costs $$2,496.95. She will also need some accessories – batteries, case, maybe a flash – so I’m asking for $3,000. Carriage drivers don’t make much money to begin with, and Christina has not been paid for the many hours she has devoted to speaking for the trade.

We need to get her this camera. She already has a pop-up gallery in her neighborhood on Ninth Street to show her art. I want to be there.

Christina has made a difference in the world – for her friends, colleagues, for the many people who love animals, and for everyone who loves art and believes it is important. Christina will do great things with this camera.

If you can help and choose to help, you can send a contribution to this fund – please make out all checks to Christina Hansen –  to my post office box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. If people choose to contribute via Paypal, you can send it to me via my Paypal ID – [email protected]. Please mention that the donation is for Christina.

She is worthy and deserving, I have enormous respect for her, her strength, integrity and her art.

21 July

Rosemary: Looking, Looking

by Jon Katz
Looking, Looking
Looking, Looking

Rosemary continues to search for her flock, she stays with our sheep, but has not attached herself to the flock yet. She and Izzy often set out on their own, or retreat to the barn if they see a dog. This is natural, some sheep attach powerfully to their companions, others don’t seem to care who they are with.

Rosemary cares. She looks like a leader, she certainly has the bearing for it.

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